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-the soulless thing for whose arms his insane obsession doomed you. The thing

at your feet, Virginia, was Number Thirteen."

With a piteous little moan the girl turned back toward the body of the young

giant. A faltering step she took toward it, and then to the horror of her father she

sank upon her knees beside it and lifting the man's head in her arms covered the

face with kisses.

"Virginia!" cried the professor. "Are you mad, child?"

"I am not mad," she moaned, "not yet. I love him. Man or monster, it would have

been all the same to me, for I loved him."

Her father turned away, burying his face in his hands.

God!" he muttered. "What an awful punishment you have visited upon me for

the sin of the thing I did."

The silence which followed was broken by Sing who had kneeled opposite Virginia

upon the other side of Bulan, where he was feeling the giant's wrists and pressing

his ear close above his heart.

"Do'n cly, Linee," said the kindly old Chinaman. "Him no dlead." Then, as he

poured a pinch of brownish powder into the man's mouth from a tiny sack he had

brought forth from the depths of one of his sleeves: "Him no mlonster either,

Linee. Him white man, alsame Mlaxon. Sing know."

The girl looked up at him in gratitude.

"He is not dead, Sing? He will live?" she cried. "I don't care about anything else,

Sing, if you will only make him live."

Him live. Gettem lilee flesh wounds. Las all."

What do you mean by saying that he is not a monster?" demanded von Horn.

You waitee, you dam flool," cried Sing. "I tellee lot more I know. You waitee I

flixee him, and then, by God, I flixee you."

Von Horn took a menacing step toward the Chinaman, his face black with wrath,

but Professor Maxon interposed.

This has gone quite far enough, Doctor von Horn," he said. "It may be that we

acted hastily. I do not know, of course, what Sing means, but I intend to find

out. He has been very faithful to us, and deserves every consideration."

130

The Monster Men